Amid Rising Anger, Boehner Promises House Will Take Up Sandy Relief Package

January 02, 2013|By DANIELA ALTIMARI, The Hartford Courant

altimari@courant.com

Following a wave of anger from politicians throughout the Northeast, Republican leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives said Wednesday that the chamber will vote within two weeks on an aid package for those who suffered losses from storm Sandy.

House Speaker John Boehner, the target of the much of the outrage, pledged that the House would vote Friday on a measure to provide $9 billion for the national flood insurance program. A larger package of aid totaling more than $50 billion will come up for a vote on Jan. 15, the first full legislative day of the newly elected Congress.

Boehner's midday announcement capped hours of escalating bipartisan criticism levied at GOP leaders for failing to bring a $60.4 billion aid package up for a vote in the waning days of 2012, more than two months after the storm lashed the Northeast. The measure cleared the Senate last week, but Boehner declined to bring it up for a vote on New Year's night after the House passed the budget compromise.

"I can't imagine that type of indifference, that type of disregard, that cavalier attitude, being shown to any other part of the country,'' said U.S. Rep. Peter King, a Republican from Long Island, who blasted a "dismissive attitude" among his Republican colleagues.

"These people have no problem finding New York when it comes to raising money,'' he said, "it's only when it comes to allocating money [that] they can't find the ability to do it."

In Trenton, New Jersey's Republican Gov. Chris Christie also took aim at Boehner. "There's only one group to blame for the continued suffering of these innocent victims: The House majority and their speaker, Rep. John Boehner," Christie said. "Folks are putting politics ahead of their responsibilities. New Jerseyans and New Yorkers are tired of being treated like second-class citizens."

In speeches before the House of Representatives, members of the Connecticut delegation invoked the sacrifices of first-responders and the widespread damage from the storm.

"Last night, in the dark of the night, the speaker announced that he was abandoning the people of Northeastern America and allowing the Hurricane Sandy relief bill to die," said Rep. Joseph Courtney during a brief speech on the House floor Wednesday.

"Homes were wiped out, utility infrastructure was wiped out, transportation infrastructure was wiped out," said Courtney, who represents eastern Connecticut, where communities such as East Lyme and Stonington suffered widespread damage because of the storm.

U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, whose district includes storm-damaged Fairfield County, recalled "the response of the people, who stood up and said, 'I will help.'''

Addressing Boehner directly, Himes spoke of firefighter Russ Neary, "who left his wife and two daughters behind to go serve the people of Easton. I attended his funeral several days later because he was killed that night doing what is best about all of us, which is that we stand up and we say we will help in times of crisis."

"Every charitable instinct, every dignified thing, everything that is noble about what those people did that night is denied by the decision of the Republican leadership to not bring up Sandy today,'' Himes said, "and to leave desperate and vulnerable people hanging."

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, whose New Haven County shoreline district was hit hard by the storm, called the decision "a shocking display of neglect" on the part of the House majority. When other regions were hit by disasters, whether wildfires in California or Colorado, a hurricane along the Gulf Coast or a tornado in the Midwest, Congress was quick to open its purse to provide relief, DeLauro said.

"Yet here we are, two months since Sandy destroyed thousands of homes and businesses, took a hundred lives across this nation, [and] this House majority said no on a vote of disaster assistance to help millions of people get back on their feet again. The Republican leadership has broken that contract of citizenship," DeLauro said.

Andrew Doba, a spokesman for Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said that the aid "would have been a big help to communities across the state." But, Doba added, "For reasons only the House GOP leadership can explain, that aid has been postponed to the next Congress.''

Malloy, Christie and New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo initially requested approximately $82 billion to clean up and fortify the region against future storms.

But even the smaller aid package that cleared the Senate would help shoreline residents rebuild their lives. The delay in releasing the money has left many in limbo, state and local officials said.

"It's been fairly well-documented that a large portion of the Atlantic coast has been decimated,'' said Paul Formica, the first selectman of East Lyme and a Republican who ran unsuccessfully against Courtney in 2012. "They need to approve that aid. ... It's been 65 days. That's a long time when you don't have a house to go to."

State Sen. John McKinney, a Republican from Fairfield, which suffered major damage in the storm, said that many homeowners were frustrated.

"My hometown got hit very hard,'' said McKinney, the minority leader in the Senate. "I'm very disappointed that Congress didn't take up the vote, but we all ought to tone down the political rhetoric and focus on the fact that people in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut need that aid."

But Connecticut Republican party Chairman Jerry Labriola said that Boehner was right to look closely at the aid package. "The $60 billion bill is full of wasteful pork spending and should be trimmed down to actual specific disaster aid,'' Labriola said. "Republicans are just trying to be fiscally responsible. Democrats, on the other hand, are addicted to spending and debt and are pushing our country to an inevitable financial calamity which will dwarf the costs of Hurricane Sandy."